FolderBoy: A Fast, Folder-based Note-taking Tool

FolderBoy is a web-based note-taking app that sits somewhere between the bare-bones functionality of Paprika and the kitchen-sink approach taken by Evernote.

As you might expect from the name, FolderBoy encourages users to create folders to organize notes. You can even create folders within folders, and move notes and folders using drag and drop. You can create tags, too, and can even tag your tags. FolderBoy says “trust us, tagging your tags is useful!” although I’m not entirely sure why. But even without using tags, it’s easy to find information quickly with FolderBoy’s “find-as-you-type” full-text search.

Similar to Evernote, FolderBoy allows you to upload text, files and links. But, once saved, the links aren’t clickable, and FolderBoy’s notes are in plain text only.

FolderBoy has some useful features, although some will take getting used to. It will create events when you type phrases like “aug 31″ or “next thursday.” It didn’t parse “a week from friday” correctly, though, and it tends to assign a time of 5pm to events created this way. You’ll need to be careful about deleting folders, too, since any notes within a folder will be deleted along with the folder.

FolderBoy is web-only, and does not have any mobile apps, although the website seems to work well on my iPod touch. The service also doesn’t have an import or export function.

FolderBoy has a free version that allows allows you to upload up to 500MB of data and create up to 1,000 notes. Premium accounts will soon be available for $45 per year and will allow users to upload up to 50GB of data. You can try FolderBoy’s demo account without signing up, or enter your email address to get your own account.

If you like the idea of using folders to organize notes, and you need an app that helps you to find notes fast, FolderBoy may be for you. But if you need rich text, desktop and mobile apps, plus import and export, you’ll need to look elsewhere.